Now, Susan and Chris direct their glares at her.
“I’ll stay until we see what you’ve got up your sleeve here,” Chris decides. He turns to Susan. “Totally up to you whether you stay or leave.”
Obviously. “We’ll stay,” Susan replies. They’ve both crossed the Rubicon.
“Right. Okay.” Barbara disappears again.
As Susan returns to her station, Gloria murmurs, “I’d lay good money this was all his idea.” She jerks her head in the direction of Rufus, who has just slipped into the tent. He catches her eye, smiles, and waggles his fingers at Susan in greeting. “Little shite.”
“Not much we can do about it now,” Susan sighs. She resumes setting up, glancing in Chris’s direction. He’s talking to his assistant, who looks even more nervous now there’s another player in the game. Chris pats the boy on the shoulder, smiles encouragingly, and Susan can imagine him murmuring, “Hey, it’s all right—you’ve got this! We’ve practiced this, just do what your instincts tell you, all right? One more team doesn’t make any difference.”
“Okay!” Barbara pops back into the tent. “They’re here.” She waves to someone just outside, and in strut Dan and Joe, Elliot’s recently departed executive and pastry chef.
“What the actual fuck is this?” Gloria explodes.
“Nice to see you too, Double-E,” Dan smirks. “I see you haven’t changed much.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Susan can see Chris shaking his head in disgust. He sets his knives down, glares at Barbara, and says, “You are railroading her”—pointing to Susan— “and I don’t like it. Springing a surprise team on us was one thing, but this is something else entirely.” He turns to Susan. “It would be totally understandable if you decided to leave. “If you go, we’ll go too,” he says, gesturing to himself and his assistant, who looks completely unnerved.
Barbara’s panicking, stammering, throwing alarmed looks at Rufus.
Rufus calmly watches the ruckus unfold, probably mentally composing his next blog post on this very fracas. “That won’t play well,” he comments. “It’ll look like you’re both running scared.”
“Hardly,” Chris scoffs. “Believe me, I’ll make sure everyone knows just what happened here.”
“Thought you’d be a bit more welcoming, now we’re partners and all.” Dan sulks before sending a sly look Susan’s way. “You hear we’re going to be neighbors soon? Funny how these things happen, right? I mean, you did this totally shitty thing to me, but it probably ended up the best thing that ever happened. So I guess we should both thank you.” He indicates himself and Joe, who looks a little embarrassed.
“You are most welcome,” Susan replies, beaming. “I’m so glad you agree that your firing really was the best thing.”
Chris doesn’t even attempt to hide his smile.
Susan exchanges looks with Gloria, whose smirk clearly says, “We can take them.”
Susan crosses the stage to Dan and holds out her hand. He hesitates, as if he’s afraid it might be dipped in poison, but then takes it, weakly. “I’m glad you’re here, Dan,” Susan tells him with a sickly smile. “It’ll be really satisfying to hand you your ass so publicly.” She turns on her heel and marches back to her station, practically feeling another, wider grin from Chris. She looks up, catches his eye, and they smile at each other. And now they aren’t competitors, really, but chefs ready to make some amazing food, and two teams united in showing up some asshole.
“Well,” Rufus gushes, “This is fun! I can’t wait to see the show!”
“Don’t you start. We know this is all down to you,” Gloria snaps, jabbing her chef’s knife in his direction.
Despite the fact he’s a good five feet away from her, Rufus cringes and shrinks away from the blade. “Oh, come on,” he says. “A little extra tension and drama adds to the fun of the thing, don’t you think?”
“No,” Chris flatly responds.
Dan and Joe shake their heads, muttering, and go about their business as the audience begins crowding into the tent. Susan notices several women putting their heads together, eyeing Chris, fluttering lashes and giggling. He doesn’t seem to notice. He’s directing his assistant and seeing to his prep. Susan, too, tries to ignore them and focus on what she needs to do.
Each team has forty-five minutes to produce two courses of their choice. They’ve been permitted to bring along up to three items that absolutely needed to be prepared ahead of time. Susan notices that Paul and Joe have brought along some very elaborate garnishes—carved radishes and fruits—and a small cooler filled with wobbly snot-yellow blobs. Chris has something that looks like salmon roe at his station.
The tent fills, and the heat and stuffiness increase. Susan can feel sweat beading up on her forehead, and she follows Gloria’s lead and ties a brightly patterned kerchief around her forehead like a headband. She sees Kay come in, followed by the rest of Susan’s family, including all of Meg’s boys, who already look bored. Kay grins and waves to her niece, who waves and smiles back. Susan notices Chris’s mouth tighten momentarily at the sight.
As the last people take their seats, Chris and his assistant leave their station and cross the stage to Susan and Gloria’s.
“Good luck to you both,” Chris says, extending a hand. “This is Rab, by the way,” he adds, gesturing to the boy, who turns bright red.
“Nice to meet you, Rab,” Susan says, shaking both their hands. “Good luck to both of you as well.”
Chris leans forward and whispers, “I really hope you’re doing those brownies of yours. Nobody’ll beat those.”
His warm smile sends a jolt up her spine and takes her right back to those days in his old flat. The two of them cooking, weaving around each other in a complex, instinctual dance. Tasting and laughing and touching and creating. She swallows hard, smiles back, and says, “You’ll just have to see, won’t you?”
Dan and Joe look uneasily at each other, then reluctantly join the other two men at the station. Handshakes all around, and they’re back in their places as the judges—a venerated chef, a young woman who smiles a lot and has a Saturday morning cooking show, and a semi-famous food blogger who looks to be about twenty years old—take their seats. Barbara, clearly relieved and probably looking forward to a very stiff drink after this, bounds up on stage, welcomes everyone, and introduces the judges and the chefs (everyone smiling and waving as the crowd cheers—loudest for Chris, of course).
“All right, chefs, are you ready?” They all nod obediently. “Let the games begin!”
They spring into action. Susan dumps rhubarb, sugar, and water into a saucepan and sets it boiling as Gloria fires up some music.
“Aw, no fair—they’ve got props!” Chris calls out good naturedly, bobbing his head in time to “Percussion Gun.”
“Everyone can use them; they’re equal opportunity!” Susan yells back, waggling her hips and whisking in time to the music.
“Hope you take requests!” Chris shouts back.
The crowd loves it and starts clapping along, as Chris laughs and makes a show of flambéing something in a pan. The audience oohs. The judges grin and chat. Dan and Joe smile gamely and try to get into the spirit of things. Barbara ping-pongs back and forth between the tables, asking the chefs questions, because as if this isn’t already difficult enough to pull off, you have to be charming too.